


Spare The Dying

by Tridraconeus



Series: Marigold Balm [3]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Captivity, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, PTSD, chillin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22748794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tridraconeus/pseuds/Tridraconeus
Summary: The kid had messy, shaggy hair, Kusa-brown but incriminatingly dyed, and was small in the way a coiled spring was small, as if any moment he might suddenly and violently expand. His eyes flicked back and forth from Yasu to the locked door. Flighty, like a caged bird, knowing damn well that he couldn’t escape.
Series: Marigold Balm [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1605055
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	Spare The Dying

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LeoOtherLands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Wake the Dead](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22688821) by [LeoOtherLands](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LeoOtherLands/pseuds/LeoOtherLands). 



> ayo happy birthday

“Hello.” Yasu kept his voice down, calling into play nearly everything he’d learned about being friendly and nonthreatening— _friendly_ in the barest sense of the word. Passive, open, mild-natured, those were better descriptors. The kid across from him was like a starved, wounded animal; too much kindness too quickly would scare him off, or worse, hurt him. 

_Just make sure he’s not useless_ was what he’d been told, and he was certain of his ability to do that, even with how many emotions the kid was too disoriented to hide flickering across his face. 

Disbelief, at first, then distrust at Yasu, then a bemused acceptance of his inoffensive demeanor; then, a sly-looking shine in his eyes as he considered taking advantage of it, and finally hungry confusion. Yasu tucked his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. 

The chakra-suppression collar hugged his throat, body-warm and snug, mirrored on the kid’s, and the similarities ran alongside each other rather neatly for a while until stopping quite suddenly. The kid had messy, shaggy hair, Kusa-brown but incriminatingly dyed, and was small in the way a coiled spring was small, as if any moment he might suddenly and violently expand. His eyes flicked back and forth from Yasu to the locked door. 

Flighty, like a caged bird, knowing damn well that he couldn’t escape. 

Yasu’s hair was neater, and also dyed, but a cornflower blue. He projected less disoriented unease and more resigned, curious surrender. 

“My name’s Yasu. What’s yours?” 

The kid fidgeted and fussed. He tugged at his own collar and let his hands drop. He crossed and uncrossed his legs, looked away from Yasu and then looked at him again. 

“They call me Ko.” 

Yasu allowed himself to smile. He could lead with that— who are _they_? Is that your _real_ name?— but he wasn’t an interrogator, and this was the furthest from an interrogation he could get. “Can I call you Ko?”

Ko obviously hadn’t been expecting that. He stopped picking at the leather of the collar and stared, prickling and heavy, at Yasu, unused to playful, gentle inquiry. He curled his lip and scratched at the collar again, then put his hands in his lap. The question hung, exceedingly harmless. He nodded, just once. 

“Hey, Ko.” Yasu smiled just a little. He let his eyes crinkle— relieved at the answer, glad for the permission. He was perhaps too obvious of a model but Ko appeared to be following his example to some degree. _It’s alright; there’s nothing to fear._ “I don’t like it either, but...” he brushed his own collar. “We didn’t know if you’d be violent, when you came to, so I insisted I have one too.” _So you would be less afraid?_ No. Too accusatory; too needling. _Mean_ , even. “So we would be on even ground.” Better. Not a perfect explanation, but not calling Ko weak or scared either, and not calling him a threat. 

His responsibility ran out now. Ko was not useless, and not broken. There would be use for him. 

Yasu’s heart twinged, and he let the ache sit with him. He was used to do these things occasionally, because he was young, and he knew he looked harmless, and the slight whimsy of colorfully dyed hair made shinobi underestimate him. He liked to debrief. Even mostly-dead, half-deranged shinobi took pause when in the same room as a medical-nin. 

He wished he could debrief Ko. He wanted to help him; wanted to draw him close and pick apart what made him hurt, and straighten out the tangles in him that must be causing him pain, and seek out his suffering to help him quell it; thus was the calling of a medical-nin.

There was only so much he could do right now. 

Ko was still staring at him. Something had happened to him, though Yasu didn’t know what, and likely would never know, but he felt a certain kinship to the other medical-nin regardless of whether he would talk or not. 

“You’re going to be okay,” he assured. He didn’t need to look at Ko to know the kid thought he was lying. 

Yasu dearly hoped he wasn’t.


End file.
